One Bite at a Time

Wednesday, July 26, 2017

Lonesome Dove

We watched Lonesome Dove as part of this summer’s
Western research and loved it just as much as ever. I know everything that’s
going to happen and most of the lines and it still moves me just as much. Lonesome Dove also serves as a valuable
tool for keeping awards in perspective. The Emmy for mini-series that year went
to War and Remembrance. Which do
people remember now?

The re-viewing resonated
so well with me I re-read the book. William Wittliff did as fine a job adapting
Larry McMurtry’s Pulitzer-winning novel as any screen- or teleplay I’ve ever
seen,

creating a program that surpasses the source material. (More on that
later.) The casting was spot on and the performances are true to the
characters. Reading the book, I hear words attributed to Gus or Woodrow or
Clara in the voices of Robert Duvall, Tommy Lee Jones, and Anjelica Houston
more often than not. Dish’s mustache is exactly as described.

Virtually all of
the dialog comes verbatim from the book and most of Wittliff’s additions come
from internal monologs McMurtry wrote. Wittliff also knew not to do too slavish
an adaptation. The character of Wilbarger does not appear, though he plays a
small yet key role in the novel. Some of Jake’s experiences with the Suggs
brothers and Frog Lip are condensed. (Editor’s Note: It occurs to me those who
have not read the book or seen the TV show will not know who those people are.
Sucks to be you. It’s your own fault. They’ve only been available 30 years now.
Get busy.)

Simon Wincer was
also an inspired choice for director. An Australian who’d never done a Western
(he went on to do Quigley Down Under
and three episodes of Comanche Moon),
Wincer took an outsider’s look at America’s most unique and beloved genre. Some
of the stereotypical camera shots are missing (some had to be thanks to
shooting locations that required angles calculated to make things look
appropriate, such as having New Mexico fill in for Nebraska), Wincer also
appreciated how to show scopes of size, most notably when Gus trails through
the Llano Estacado in search or Lori and Blue Duck, and when pursued by the
Kiowas Blue Duck sends back to kill him.

Few, if any,
television shows or films have attempted to show such a breadth and depth of
any period, from human relationships that transcend time to the hardships
unique to the American frontier and the types of people it attracted and
spawned. In that it also emulates the book, which shows how an epic story need
deal with only a year and a relative handful of people to be successful. The
catch is, though the book won its big award and the series did not, the series
is better.

To some this will
seem like apostasy, but the book has significant flaws. Not in the most
important elements of story and characters but in the writing itself. Lonesome Dove, for all its brilliance,
badly needed an editor.

First, it’s too
long; judicious cuts would take nothing away. About a quarter of the book is
backstory. McMurtry works it in as he goes, but at times becomes so enthralled
with the past lives of characters he seems to forget shit is happening right
now in the reader’s experience and it would be nice to get back to it. He
invests four pages examining Pea Eye’s thoughts on women, which would be okay
except that Pea Eye doesn’t really have any. Worse, Pea Eye is a spear-carrier
for much of the book. He’s needed, and Gus and Call depend on him as a reliable
hand, but he’s there to perform functions, not to enhance the experience. This
is not an isolated example. At some point just about every character has at
least one extended reminiscence—in the case of Dish’s feelings for Lorena more
than one—that does little or nothing other than slow things down.

I hear you. “But
it’s such beautiful writing.” Much of the time it is. There are also too
frequent examples of amateurish mistakes that would get a lesser-known writer
tossed before an agent finished the first page. Repeated words in sentences.
(“’A ladies man like me can hardly be expected to resist such a passel of
ladies.” In the teleplay the line is, “A ladies man like me can hardly be
expected to resist such a passel of beauties.” Much better.) Unclear speech
attributions. Word order in sentences. (“’Newt Dobbs,’ Augustus said, after a
pause.” Why not, “After a pause Augustus said, “Newt Dobbs?” Or an action to
describe the pause. Something before
he speaks though, so we don’t have to go back and add the pause retroactively.)

Point of view flits
from character to character like a bee through a field of clover. McMurtry’s
good enough to pull this off the overwhelming majority of the time, but there
are still occasions when one wonders whose head we’re in, and why? I’m not here
to question his talent nor the magnitude of the accomplishment, but that’s
sloppy work. The book and his readers deserved better.

So, on balance,
this is the rare situation where I prefer the visual medium to the book.
Wittliff and Wincer knew what to keep, what to get rid of, and what to change
to create a masterpiece from a brilliant book with significant flaws. If you’re
among the handful referred to above who have experienced neither, get the DVDs.
You’ll never be sorry.

Lots of ways to pre-order Res Mall

Worst Enemies, Book 1 of the Penns River series

Click the cover to buy

Grind Joint, Book 2 of the Penns River series

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Forte 4: A Dangerous Lesson Available Now! Click the image below to purchase.

Chicago Private Investigator Nick Forte’s official task is to find out what he can about Jennifer Vandenbusch’s new suitor, who fails to measure up in the eyes of the family matriarch, Jennifer’s grandmother. This seems par for the course for Forte, as his personal life has been leading him through a series of men who treat women badly, though none nearly as badly as the Thursday Night Slasher. Forte lives on the fringes of the investigation run by his old friend Sonny Ng until elements of Forte’s case and life dovetail with the Slasher investigation, leading to Forte discovering more about the crimes—and himself—than he wanted to know.

The Man in the Window

"...we see him getting rougher, tougher and darker book by book. There are multiple twists in the end, two cool sidekicks, good action scenes and some pretty nifty Chanderlisms in this book, adding up to a perfect PI read"--Sons of Spade blog

The Stuff That Dreams Are Made Of (Nick Forte 2)

It's a kind of authorial magic that The Stuff That Dreams Are Made Of works as a tribute and as a story, and that neither aspect interferes in the least with the other… I can imagine this book finding its way into a class on writing crime fiction as an example of how to pay tribute to one's predecessors while at the same time writing a story that can stand on its own. It's an impressive accomplishment.--- Peter Rozovsky, Detectives Beyond Borders, December 18, 2014

About Me

Two of my Nick Forte Private investigator novels (A SMALL SACRIFICE and THE MAN IN THE WINDOW) received nominations for Shamus Awards. I also write a series of police procedurals set in the economically depressed town of Penns River PA, published by Down & Out Books. A non-fiction essay, “Chandler’s Heroes,” appeared in Spinetingler Magazine online in October of 2013.
I live in Laurel MD with The Beloved Spouse.